Land Your Next Dream Role - Top Tips For An All Star LinkedIn Profile

With over 750 million LinkedIn users and 40 million job seekers on the platform every day, it's increasingly important to ensure you effectively increase your online presence and brand on LinkedIn to become visible to hiring managers and recruiters alike. 

LinkedIn has secured its spot as the prime platform for those seeking a new role. It’s also a place where Recruiters, Headhunters and Hiring Managers often begin their search for new talent. Having a detailed and engaging LinkedIn profile as well as consistent activity can make you more discoverable and put you in a prime position for being approached by a recruiter or employer with relevant opportunities. 

How confident are you with your own personal brand? 

What does your LinkedIn profile say about your skills, experience and how you can add value to an organisation? 

Is your LinkedIn up to date and reflective of your resume / CV? 

Our team of recruitment experts view thousands of LinkedIn profiles on a weekly basis, giving them an in-depth knowledge of LinkedIn best practice; supported by CSG Talent’s Marketing team who support consultants with their own personal brand and profiles. 

Below are our top tips to consider and utilise to enhance your LinkedIn profile and presence within your network: 

What type of profile picture is best for a LinkedIn profile?

Having a professional profile picture on your LinkedIn profile will increase your average number of profile views by up to 14 times. It’s important your profile picture is clear, with minimal distractions. It’s not essential for it to be a corporate headshot, but a professional photo that gives that all important first impression when a LinkedIn user lands on your profile. 

Ideally a headshot so your face is recognisable, it puts a name to a face and should you meet in person at various stages of the recruitment process or networking events, you can be easily recognised. 

If you can, take a picture (by yourself) with a relatively plain background, however there are multiple free apps and photo sites where you can remove a background from a photo, should you need to. With the rise of AI imagery, you can also now upload images of yourself, and it will generate a professional headshot from these. A simple google search will provide you with plenty of options to do this.  

What should I include in my LinkedIn headline?

Your headline is what will allow you to stand out both on your profile and through LinkedIn searches. It’s important to get across your role and potential value you can add to a business, while keeping it concise so it can be easily viewed in a snapshot. Go beyond your job title, and use this as an opportunity to hone in on your specialist experience and offering to your network. 

Not only does your headline show at the top of your profile, but also every time you comment on somebody else’s post underneath your name. The headline can be up to 220 characters so use it effectively. 

Consider the following structure when creating your LinkedIn headline:

• Your Job Title (if this is very specific to your organisation, think of a title which is more relatable and transferable) 
• Key skills/expertise to a granular level if relevant to your market 
• Industry specialism and region you work within

·    Examples include: 

“Sales Director | Specialist in driving sales performance in the US Personalised Medicine market” 

“Marketing Professional in Warehouse Automation – Driving inbound leads and supporting the development of new Automation / Robotics clients and candidates” 

“Internal Engagement Specialist – Development of Internal Comms | Increasing Productivity | Supporting Employee Retention” 

A short and effective headline can help you stand out from others in similar roles and encourage a Hiring Manager or Recruiter to click through to your profile and make contact. 

What is important to include in your summary section on LinkedIn?

This is the section on your LinkedIn profile where you have free text and opportunity to demonstrate not only your skills and experience, but to also get across your personality, how you communicate and any additional areas you can add value. 

Focus on some of the areas below in your about/summary section: 

·        An overview of your career journey to date, current role and expertise, how did you end up on this path? 

·        Are you working on any projects worth mentioning? 

·        Can you highlight recent success or achievements that would demonstrate the value you can add to an organisation or contribute to business strategy, goals or ROI? 

·        What do you love most about your role or the industry you work within? 

·        Are there any CSR or internal projects/events you’re involved with? 

Keep this section updated regularly and consider what new skills, experience, or contributions you can update to enhance your profile. 

What is the featured section on LinkedIn?

Set your profile to ‘creator’ mode and showcase some of your work. This may not be relevant for all; however this can be beneficial if you have engaging content you can share such as articles, videos, podcasts, case studies or specific posts you have shared on LinkedIn. You can also use creator mode to highlight topics you talk about and engage with on LinkedIn clearly, at the top of your profile. 

Skills to highlight on a LinkedIn profile

To encourage other LinkedIn users to view your profile, including key decision makers, it’s important to list your most desirable skills on your profile. This will increase your chances of receiving a LinkedIn message by more than 31 times. 

Throughout your profile it’s important to utilise key words most recognised in your industry and the type of role you do. The more key words and key skills you have on your profile, the increased chance you will have at being present in profile searches. It will also result in an increased number of premium LinkedIn job postings being shared with you as more job adverts match the key words you have displayed on your profile. 

Explore job descriptions or adverts for your role, or roles you aspire towards and leverage key words from those into your own profile. 

Endorsements and Recommendations on a LinkedIn profile

Once you have your key skills listed on your profile, encourage colleagues, clients or friends/family to endorse you for those skills. 

Recommendations are a great tool to highlight your experience so reach out to those you have worked with and delivered successful outcomes and results to request a review or recommendation. Can you reciprocate and write a recommendation for them? Having a mixture of recommendations on your profile will help build your credibility and the perception of your ability to carry out a potential new role. As much as your profile can tell people what you do and how successful you are, your recommendation section acts as the proof to support this. 

Engagement, Activity and Content on LinkedIn

To both promote and develop your online brand, it’s important to not only engage with other content and interact with others on the platform, it’s also valuable to share your own content. When somebody views your profile, under the first section the next thing a visitor will see is your activity – this includes your own posts, as well as likes, comments and shares of others’ content. 

Staying active on the platform will help build your presence and demonstrate your credibility within the market you operate and in time, fine tune your network to be as relevant as possible. The type of content you share will vary on your role and the industry you work within. Posting imagery, video, articles, polls, quotes or encouraging conversation by posing questions to your network are all great ways to increase your activity. The key is to maintain consistency. If consistent to you is once a week, stick at that. If you have enough relevant and quality content to share multiple times per week, do that – but stick to it week in, week out.  

It can be daunting to begin with if you aren’t a regular poster but start small and keep it simple to build confidence. Posting on LinkedIn is a long game and can take time to feel ‘worth it’ but see it as an extension of your service and brand.  

Utilising LinkedIn to gain the most value and results for building your network, presence and personal brand is important at any stage of your career. Whether you’re a C-suite level Board Director, VP or you’re a graduate early on in your career journey, having an all-star LinkedIn profile is essential. 

If you’re keen to discuss potential career opportunities in the short or long term, please get in touch with our expert team. Our consultants operate globally across a wide range of industry sectors, not only having the knowledge and skills across the full recruitment process, but with in-depth knowledge of the market to effectively support your career growth. Our consultants are there as an extension of your personal brand and will work hand in hand to push beyond your LinkedIn searches to find a role that is right for you. Explore our candidate services or latest job opportunities here.